Over the last several years, I’ve gathered indisputable evidence of Diana Nyad’s five-decade history of lies. I’ve also found many instances in which she minimizes and steals the accomplishments of other women.
Steven Munatones used Openwaterpedia to do more than ratify Diana Nyad’s crossing and make her look like the best marathon swimmer of the 1970s. He fabricated records for himself and another marathon swimmer who had no idea what Steven was up to.
Diana Nyad, Bonnie Stoll, and Steven Munatones, during a phone conference at Munatones’ home in Huntington Beach, CA, on September 10, 2013. They attempted to quell doubts about Nyad’s crossing. Notwithstanding Nyad’s declarations of success, the attempt failed. Sound familiar? Complete clip here. Via Reuters/Pond5.
Almost six months ago, the World Open Water Swimming Association (WOWSA) announced an investigation into my allegations that Steven Munatones vandalized Openwaterpedia to benefit Diana Nyad.
In an earlier post, I wrote that WOWSA’s investigation likely took a week or two. Had WOWSA exonerated Munatones, they’d have said so.
Instead, the organization appears to have made a deal with Steven: If you leave quietly, we won’t publish our findings.
WOWSA couldn’t continue functioning with a co-owner they knew had falsified thousands of Openwaterpedia pages to benefit a swimmer he revered.
So, on May 18, WOWSA’s three owners — Steven Munatones, Antonio Argüelles, and Quinn Fitzgerald — dissolved the company by filing a Certificate of Termination with the California Secretary of State.
Absent WOWSA’s findings, here are more examples of Steven using Openwaterpedia to fabricate documentation, including multiple records for a body of water no one has ever crossed.
A two-month-old interview presents Diana Nyad just before she began trying to undo her lies. In fact, she takes some of her standard fabrications and makes them even more outrageous.
With a month to go before screenings of NYAD begin, she tries to hide her lies and undo five decades of deceit.
By the time she’d reached her twenties, Diana Nyad knew she was worthy of a blockbuster. “I’ve written a screenplay based on my life,” she told the Miami Herald in 1978. “It’s kind of like Rocky. And the happy ending is the Cuba swim.”
After 45 years, Nyad’s Hollywood fantasy is about to come true. Nyad — starring four-time Oscar nominee Annette Bening and two-time Oscar recipient Jodie Foster, directed by Oscar winners Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi — begins screening at festivals next month.
In a recent Facebook post, Diana Nyad lauds Sally Jenkins’ new book, The Right Call: What Sports Teach Us About Work and Life. But Jenkins missed the lesson about con artists.
Respected journalist Sally Jenkins has a blind spot for charismatic frauds.
Granted, I come to that conclusion based on a sample size of two, but let me explain.
Diana Nyad made my day yesterday. In an interview with Sanjay Gupta, she corrected him in a way that shows she or someone close to her follows the Nyad Fact Check site.
It’s a significant step toward what one legit best-of-the-’70s marathon swimmer called Nyad’s “eventual comeuppance.” I’m grateful SwimSwam was willing to risk Nyad’s wrath by publishing it. And I appreciate all the time and effort journalist Riley Overend devoted to researching and writing the piece.
Other than a few 2013 articles just after Nyad’s crossing, this is only the second by someone outside of the marathon swimming community who takes Nyad skeptics seriously.
Steven Munatones distributed a significantly altered and abbreviated version of the World Open Water Swimming Association (WOWSA) report on Diana Nyad’s Cuba-Florida crossing, but he presented it as complete.
Earlier this month, I sent Diana Nyad a letter. It addressed questions about her Cuba–Florida crossing and how she might want to clear those up before the release of her biopic.
I copied the letter to 60 other people — journalists, folks involved with the film, and representatives of swimming organizations. I also sent a copy to Steven Munatones, Nyad’s most ardent supporter in the marathon swimming community.
Two months ago, the World Open Water Swimming Association (WOWSA) promised an investigation into the 2019 Openwaterpedia vandalism. They haven’t mentioned it since. Here’s why.
In February, I found conclusive evidence that WOWSA co-owner Steven Munatones vandalized Openwaterpedia, one of the organization’s sites, to make Diana Nyad’s best-swimmer-of-the-1970s fantasy appear legitimate. Shortly after I wrote about that evidence, the organization announced they’d look into it:
WOWSA takes these allegations seriously and has initiated an investigation to determine the veracity of these claims. To the extent any of these allegations are found to be true, appropriate action will be taken. (“An Update About Openwaterpedia,” 4 Mar 2023)
That was two months ago. WOWSA hasn’t posted a word about it since, nor have they taken any public action, appropriate or otherwise.
On March 2, I published an article about how Steven Munatones’s “Free Solo (Confidential)” led to proof that he sabotaged Openwaterpedia. Since then, a lot has happened: the World Open Water Swimming Association (WOWSA) announced an investigation, Steven Munatones began spamming Openwaterpedia with links to a revenge blog, and then everything got quiet.
When WOWSA blocked Steven Munatones’s Openwaterpedia account on January 30 for “Inserting nonsense/gibberish into pages,” he must have felt that his own organization had betrayed him. When the WOWSA board unblocked him on February 22, I assumed Steven was back in WOWSA’s good graces, and they wouldn’t take my accusations seriously.
